UPDATE: TradeStation Daily Volume Hit 2-Year Low In August
03 September 2009 - 2:40AM
Dow Jones News
TradeStation Group Inc. (TRAD) said average trading volume fell
17% last month, hitting the lowest level since May 2007.
Daily average trades for electronic trading platform dropped to
76,808 in August, also down 3.6% from July. Last month's figure is
the smallest since May 2007's 68,663. Since then, overall market
trading volume has surged amid the credit crisis and subsequent
slump and rebound in equities markets.
However, TradeStation's August metrics likely won't provide an
accurate barometer to predict results from its industry peers. The
firm uses a rule-based trading platform, which executes trading
decisions based on data gathered over a period of time.
Raymond James analyst Patrick O'Shaughnessy said that
TradeStation "should be an outlier" this month. O'Shaughnessy and
others expect online brokers, such as TD Ameritrade Holding Corp.
(AMTD) and E*Trade Financial Corp. (ETFC), to post
better-than-expected DARTs due to strong trading activity in
low-priced stocks such as Citigroup Inc. (C).
Client assets at TradeStation were up 6% from a year earlier to
reach a new high of $1.93 billion despite the stock market's
decline. They rose 1.8% from July.
The company last month reported weaker second-quarter results,
which TradeStation largely blamed on lower interest rates cutting
net interest income. Brokerage commissions and fees rose 13%.
Shares of TradeStation recently traded up 6 cents at $7.09. The
company's stock is down 30% over the past year.
-By Kevin Kingsbury, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2354;
kevin.kingsbury@dowjones.com
(Brett Philbin contributed to this report.)